Despite Rick Warren’s odious appearance and a bumbling exchange between the new president and Chief Justice Roberts, Barack Obama’s inauguration was as moving and powerful as the rest of his journey to the White House as been.
With empowering rhetorical style in his speech this afternoon, Obama elicited misty eyes and wide smiles from the immense D.C. crowd – while simultaneously managing to ensure the American people that this presidency will be nothing like the previous.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 24, 2008, at 7:00 am
Writing in HuffPo recently, Bob Ostertag insists it is:
It’s just plain sad what the gay and lesbian movement has come to. November 4 was so extraordinary, so magical. The whole world seemed to come together. Except for gays and lesbians in California. We were supposed to feel crushed over Proposition 8. And now the whole scenario is gearing up to repeat itself on January 20: the whole world will celebrate the inauguration of the first black American president and the end of the George Bush insanity – the whole world except gays and lesbians who will be protesting Rick Warren’s presence at the inaugural.
How is it that queers became the odd ones out at such a momentous turning point in history? By pushing an agenda of stupid issues like gay marriage.
“Gay marriage” turns the real issues of equal rights for sexual minorities upside down and paints us into a reactionary little corner of our own making.
Given the setback of Amendment 2 in Florida that is fresh in everyone’s minds here, it is a reasonable question to ask if the GLBT community has made a tactical or political mistake in pushing for the right to marry just as heterosexuals can. So I asked a few well-known Tampa Bay gay activists or politicos their thoughts and here is what I have received back so far:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Dec. 19, 2008, at 1:00 pm
Rev. Rick Warren, the author of “The Purpose-Driven Life,” says that gays should fight against their biological impulses, just like people have to suppress fear or anger in this interview snippet with Ann Curry of The Today Show:
The LGBT community, already not a fan of Obama’s (and apparently vice versa) is understandably miffed.
AFTERNOON UPDATE: Equality Florida sent its supporters this e-mail:
Rev. Rick Warren: Wrong Choice
President-elect Obama’s decision to have the anti-gay Rev. Rick Warren give the invocation at his Presidential Inauguration is an insult to all who believe in equality and a particular insult to LGBT Americans.
It is bad enough that President-elect Obama doesn’t support full marriage equality, but to have a deeply anti-gay minister who has actively worked to strip away our rights and compared our relationships to incest and pedophilia is too deep an insult for us to ignore.
We ask you to join with Equality Florida and sign the petition to President-elect Obama and Congress, letting them know it’s time to stop honoring those who work to take away the rights of LGBT Americans.
Watch Warren’s statements supporting Prop 8 and comparing marriages of gay couples to adults marrying children:
